Resident Evil 7 Biohazard review. Need to know. What is it First person survival horror that returns to the series roots. Of Volleyball Games For Pc. Image/covers/resident-evil-4/resident-evil-4-image515045.jpg' alt='Biohazard 4 Pc' title='Biohazard 4 Pc' />Resident Evil, spelled Baiohazdo or simply Biohazard in Japan is a survival horror. Metacritic Game Reviews, Resident Evil 7 biohazard for PlayStation 4, While Resident Evil 7 draws from the series roots of atmospheric survival horror, it also. Expect to pay 4. Developer Capcom. Warcraft 2 No-Cd Patch'>Warcraft 2 No-Cd Patch. Publisher In house. Reviewed on Radeon RX 4. Intel i. 7 5. 82. K, 1. 6GB RAMMultiplayer None. Link. Official site. Buy it. Humble store. Read ouraffiliates policy. Ethan Winters drives deep into the Louisiana bayou to find his missing wife. We follow his car from above, a tiny speck against a vast expanse of remote, isolated swampland. The setting sun casts a gloomy orange glow over the landscape, giving you a creeping sense of foreboding. If you get lost or go missingor worseout here, who would ever know Its a beautiful, evocative shot, and almost certainly an homage to the Torrance familys yellow car snaking through the Colorado mountains at the beginning of The Shining. But Resident Evil has always been inspired by horror cinema, even if recent entries in the series have been more Uwe Boll than Stanley Kubrick. This understated opening immediately sets the tone for Resident Evil 7. Its a return to the atmospheric, slow burning horror of the original, with a few nods to contemporary games like Alien Isolation and Amnesia. The shift to a first person perspective might suggest its a bold reinvention of the series, in the same way Resident Evil 4 was, but it really isnt. Its classic Resident Evil through and through, with healing herbs, item boxes, elaborate puzzles, and shambling monsters. But the convoluted mythology, overripe melodrama, and absurd action set pieces that plagued the last few games have been sidelined for something more subtle and refined. To be fair, the first hourbefore item management and weapons are introducedis different to anything Capcom has ever done before. Its a brilliantly paced, cleverly designed parade of scares set in a dilapidated old house. The fear of what lies around each darkened corner, and your inability to defend yourself, gives you a powerful feeling of tension and unease. It uses jump scares and psychological trickery to whittle away at your nerves, and its probably the scariest the series has ever been. But as soon as I had a 9mm pistol in my hand, and found myself juggling items in my inventory and using arcane objects to unlock doors, I felt right at home. Thats not to say the game stops being scary the moment you find a gun. Not only is ammunition a near constant luxury, but certain enemies cant be killed at all, forcing you to sneak past them. You can attack them, and they disappear for a while, but they soak up so many bullets that its often a poor trade. You always feel vulnerable, even when youre cradling a shotgun or grenade launcher, because you never know what the games going to throw at you next. One of its greatest strengths is keeping you on your toes and mischievously second guessing you, throwing in a scare when you least expect it, resisting when the moment seems obvious. Its a disgusting, rotten placea far cry from the grand Spencer mansionand rendered in astonishing detail. Confidence comes in waves. Youll find ammo and feel unstoppable. Then youll find yourself locked in a small room with an enemy, waste all your bullets by firing at it in a blind panic, and suddenly feel helpless again. However, there are a few moments, mostly in the last third of the game, where you have an abundance of ammunition and can merrily shoot any monstrosity that crosses your path. These sections almost feel like a reward for your many hours of careful ammo conservation and patient sneaking, and are hugely cathartic. But just as youre delighting in your newfound power, its snatched away. The early hours are spent in and around an old house owned by the reclusive Baker family. Its a disgusting, rotten placea far cry from the grand Spencer mansionand rendered in astonishing detail. You can almost smell the mouldering food and stale, dusty air as you explore, and the building creaks and groans like a dying animal as its battered by the wind. Theres a grimy, almost tangible realism to the visuals, and the audio design is sensational too. You can easily track the shuffling footsteps of an enemy by ear, gauging where they are based on sound alone. And the creaking floorboards and sinister sounds that echo around you only add to the rumbling sense of dread felt in every room of this dreary homestead. But you dont spend the entire game in the house. Theres a surprising amount of variety here, and it never lingers on one location or situation for too long. Not once did I feel like the game was artificially extending its length with backtracking or fillersomething even the best games in the series are guilty of. And during the nine hours it took me to finish it, it was constantly surprising me with new ideas, locations, and story revelations. I wont go into specifics, because its a game that should be played blind, but there are some nice pace changes and shifts in rhythm that jolt you out of your comfort zone. One of my favourite features, but one I wish theyd made more of, is the use of flashbacks. Find a VHS tape and slide it into a video player and youll relive events from the past. In one tape youre part of a TV crew filming a low budget paranormal investigation show in the Baker familys guest house. These little standalone vignettes are wonderfully creepy, and I like how they sometimes reveal something that will help Ethan later onlike the location of a hidden switch. But there are only a handful of them to discover, and I feel like they should have been a much bigger part of the game. For me theres something more intimate about seeing things through Ethans eyes. The move to first person is not as revolutionary as you might think. The combat, which largely involves taking careful aim at an enemy as they shamble towards you, is very Resident Evil. Its no FPS, thankfully, and the game has a nasty habit of making enemies creep up behind you while youre distracted by the one in front. But, curiously, theres no lean button, which makes those moments when youre trying to sneak around a hammer wielding maniac slightly tricky. Some will miss the traditional third person camera, but for me theres something more intimate about seeing things through Ethans eyes. For the most part, Resident Evil 7 is a successful exercise in modernising and reassessing a series that had become bloated and indulgent. But old habits die hard, and there are a few momentsespecially the boss battlesthat could easily be slotted into any of the old games. The careful, considered horror is occasionally nudged to one side as you find yourself fighting giant mutants covered in staring eyeballs, and you half expect Chris Redfield to show up and start punching rocks. But these lapses are infrequent, and do have some nostalgia value. Even though its the most self serious Resident Evil yet, it still has a sense of humour. After solving another ludicrous puzzle to unlock a door, Ethan says Who builds this shitEven though it tries to distance itself, there are links to previous Resident Evil games. Some are subtle, like a newspaper article written by Outbreaks Alyssa Ashcroft, and others are more overt. But it manages to avoid dining out on the series history too much, and is a fairly standalone story. Ethans search for his wife gives it a relatable, human underpinningeven when the story unravels towards the end and veers dangerously into B movie territory.